


nugatory ego

by Serendilia



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 20:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11169108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serendilia/pseuds/Serendilia
Summary: It is an odd way that the visits start; it's always at night when Sombra slinks into Satya's room, quiet and unable to be caught by anyone in the company. There is no reason given yet as to why it is that an agent of Talon is here, in the same room as Satya, but as long as she doesn't do anything... she does not care.Until one night, it changes.





	nugatory ego

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: fixed up the fact that i kept writin the wrong V name because i couldnt check literally due to being in a country where the overwatch wikipedia is banned

It’s strange to think that she has gotten so used to the woman’s presence. It starts off absurdly enough; the hacker slips into her room one night, while Satya is working, and she doesn’t say anything. She sits on her bed, looks at her fake nails on her right hand, and never says a word to Satya.

“I will have you kicked out of here.” Satya says to her several times, warning, but the hacker - Sombra, if she’s to believe the news - merely shrugs her shoulders and looks at her. After a few minutes, when Satya makes a hovering motion near the buzzer, Sombra finally stands up and leaves through the window, camouflaged away.

The visits don’t stop after the first time Satya has done that. It is… unnerving, her silence, but she has grown accustomed to it. Often, she is forced to stay up far too late at night, reading reports and writing down theories that may or mayn’t be rejected if they find they are unable to follow through.

Plans and ideas for spreading the influence is given to her superiors; nonlethal methods, ways to change her gun so that it induces unconsciousness and does not burn them to death, are always suggested and she is never given a response. “It’s far more expensive to make them nonlethal now, Vaswani,” one of her superiors say, “your gun is unique, and to change it we’d have to spend weeks rebuilding it. Treat it as situational instead.”

Despite her displeasure, Satya accepts the explanation with as much grace as she can and she returns to her lab, spends hours of her work there, and then returns to her room so that she may continue on work in her tablet before sleep overtakes her.

Even the presence of Sombra is not enough to change her schedule… and it is not as if she hasn’t tried to chase Sombra out. Guards have been put outside her room after her third claim that Sombra has broken in; it has only been reinforced when there has been a breach recently… thankfully, no viruses, but still a massive breach of security.

If Sombra is visiting her, then she needs to be protected is what they say. Cameras won’t really matter much if Sombra can merely wave her hands at them and they’ll be turned off immediately. It is… a horrible situation, surely, but as long as Sombra does not speak to her, then Satya won’t even bother anymore.

There is far too much work she has to try and stress herself, constantly, over something that she has done everything for… and she really does not wish to use her gun if it can be avoided. 

Quiet, they sit far from each other. Satya at her desk, a tablet in hand and one more for her own work next to her, and Sombra lazing on her be. Weeks go by like this… though, there are times when Sombra does not visit that night.

Until, one night, it changes. Even though she doesn’t hear anyone approaching, a folder drops down on her desk and Satya jolts in surprise. “You might wanna see this, babe.” Sombra says to her, finally, her voice mocking and yet so oddly gentle and Satya looks at her oddly. “It’s all about to do with your requests. Have a look.”

She’s quiet and merely glares at Sombra, takes in her smug look, and Satya exhales roughly through her nose. “I am not sure why you expect me to trust anything you have to show.” Satya says, her head rising up and a frown marring her face. “I refuse to look at what you have shown me, and I refuse to be turned against my own company.”

The agitation flashes across Sombra’s face and her grin turns into a scowl. “Look at it.” Sombra hisses. “I ain’t doing this for me, Talon, or anybody else.  _ Look at it. _ ”

“I refuse.” Satya says simply, her hands rising up so that she may look at her tablet again… only for her cybernetic arm to abruptly lose all connection to her and fall limp, the tablet clattering from her hands. Satya gasps, eyes wide with panic at the sudden loss of sensation from her arm…

It hangs limply next to her and, no matter how much Satya wills it, refuses to move. She looks up at Sombra, sees the magenta strands of light attaching her fingertips to Satya’s arm, and she grits her teeth. “You…” Satya trembles in anger, trying not to snap. “You cowardly  _ scumbag. _ ”

If Sombra is bothered by her words then she surely doesn’t show it. Instead, she just shrugs and moves two of her fingers, forcing Satya’s cybernetic hand to move against her will to open the folder.

“Shame you ain’t the ninja.” Sombra says. “I coulda had complete control of her, y’know.” The thought makes Satya’s skin go cold and ever so slightly pale and a sick, gut-clenching feeling coils in her gut. “If you won’t open the folder, then I’ll open it for you.”

Papers stare up at her and Satya can’t help but gaze at them. Despite how much she doesn’t want to, she cannot hold back her curiosity and she reads through the first paper… only to realise it’s one of her many requests and suggestions for a way to turn her gun nonlethal. As though realising that she has read it, Sombra makes her left the paper up and put it aside.

What is shown next to her seem to be a stream of emails. She reads over each one; she recognises the name of one of them, Zayan who is a friend of hers, and it seems to be that he is trying his hardest to try and get the prospect approved.

But the response he gets is always the same.  _ ‘Nonlethal is not necessary. If Vaswani does not want to use lethal methods, have it her way, but we will not be changing anything for her to not be nonlethal. The people she is dealing with are dangerous, care too much about freedom, and should be dealt with accordingly. Her means of peace is a difficulty that we do not want to give on to ourselves.’ _

“There is no way that this is true.” Satya says suddenly. “Vishkar industries has always hoped to find the most peaceful manners, and we have always been on the forefront of peace and negotiations even if they have not gone right.”

At that, Sombra curls her hand into a fist and the magenta lines snap and all feeling returns to her arm just as abruptly as it has left. She gasps loudly and curls up, holds her arm close, and Satya glares up at the impassive Sombra. Without saying a word to her, she swipes Satya’s personal tablet and quickly taps something into it before Sombra hands it back.

“Here’s your friend’s email. Don’t worry, he won’t know you were the one who accessed it.” With that said, Sombra’s body stutters, looking like a glitchy and broken screen, before it disappears and Satya stares at where she has been.

Her eyes fall onto her tablet, at the notepad that has been opened up and stares at the email address and password of her colleague.

She shouldn’t.

 

 

But she does.

 

There are talks for the next few days on the fact that Sombra has broken in through their systems again. Whatever defences they have been putting up, Satya doesn’t know what they are, haven’t been working against her and she tries not to let herself be taken up by what is being said and spread in their company.

The emails haunt her. Her friend’s insistence on trying to get Satya’s work authorised gets to her. He tries and tries, clear and passionate about her ideas given the numerous paragraphs he has written trying to convince his superiors, only to get the same cold and distant reply consistently.

At his very last email, their superiors finally send back an email coldly, cruelly, telling Satya’s colleague to stop his pestering and attempts to get her work recognised or else they will demote him or, worse, remove him entirely from the company despite what great work he has done.

Their rejections of peace, which seems entirely personally motivated and not by difficulty of work or money itself, sticks to the back of her mind and Satya finds that she cannot work with a clear head… at all.

It is night time before she knows it and she has to leave for her room; she waves goodbye at her co-workers, makes sure that everything is rearranged properly and put back in their respective places in the lab, and Satya makes her way to the elevators so that she may head back. Her fingers itch with the need to work, to make something small out of her hard light arm, but Satya cannot bring herself to do it.

Her arm is meant for her heavy duty to work so that she may be able to map out architecture and such properly… it is not a toy for Satya to fidget with when the nervousness is too much. Still, a part of her itches to make use of her arm and she at least is able to get rid of the itch when Satya is finally able to take her uniform off. Slipping into something comfortable, she sits at her desk and waits for the inevitable visit from Sombra.

Unable to do anything but stare at her work tablet blankly, Satya waits and waits until Sombra slips in, finally. She can hear Sombra walking up to her, another file dropping down onto her desk and when Satya looks up she is greeted with a proud grin.

“So, I take it you believe me now, huh?” Sombra says. She doesn’t wait for Satya to respond before she opens the folder herself this time and she can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when Sombra doesn’t take control of her arm again.

The lack of sensation in her arm is not something Satya ever wants to repeat again. Still, Satya eyes Sombra warily and then looks at the small pile of papers in front of her. “Why are you doing this?” Satya asks. “There is absolutely no reason for you to do this. We do not work for Overwatch, nor do we supply the government with anything. We do not have anything that could be of use to you or Talon.”

Sombra eyes her. “There is absolutely no need for you to break into the company I am working at and waste your time here. What even are you doing here?”

All she gets is a shrug. “Work.” Is her curt reply. “You gonna read or what, Satty? Or do you want me to call you Symmetra? Symmy? Symmy sounds perfect. So, Symmy, you gonna look at it, or are you gonna make me angry?”

With a glare, Satya reaches out to the folder and lifts one paper up. Smoothing out the edges and making sure that it is completely straight, Satya sets to reading over the words and frowns. At first, she isn’t entirely sure why she is reading this. They seem to be some sort of plan that is detailed yet disjointed as if no one has had time to put their thoughts together properly. There are addendums added, strikeouts, and it becomes clear to Satya that these are plans done on the computer with shared group judging from the comments on it.

Still, nothing of it makes sense. She reads and reads through it, trying to find a common link, yet the only thing she can seem to understand is that there is some sort of hard light… device being made that will implode upon itself to release a strong, spherical shield.

It will push against everything around it, crumbling it, and will then stay still so that it may do… something. Whoever that is setting this plan together isn’t entirely sure what they want it to do, and Satya can’t help but frown at such a violent method. 

Her eyes fall on her own name in one paragraph… and widen when Satya realises that this is a plan from her superiors of something they want her to do in two months. Plant the shield-bomb, lie to her that it is simply to guard the area and then release warnings that civilians and living beings must be outside, so that they can renovate.

Then if Satya is to ask they can simply state that it is some sort of sabotage… and she sees a comment of someone mentioning Sombra and Talon;  _ ‘with the break-ins lately, we can pin the blame on Talon.’ _

She goes through the other papers, only to realise that they seem to be of the same plan yet entirely different. Equations and suggestions are put on the paper that are far too dangerous and it is clearly that this has been an archive so that they can look back at their mistakes and see why it is that certain ideas are too risky to enact.

“What?” Satya asks but Sombra is gone before she can get an answer and discomfort settles heavily in her belly. A notification comes on her work tablet, letting her know she has access to new documents… and when Satya checks them, she sees that they are all documents on the current plan.

Before she can read much, she is immediately barred from it and Satya receives a distressed call from one of her superiors asking her if she has any idea who can even give her access to such highly classified documents… when she has to respond, Satya lies.

Sombra does not return for a week. The new knowledge that Satya has settles horribly in her gut, questions constantly on the tip of her tongue that she does not know if she wants to ask. What if they terminate her out of the company like they have threatened with Zayan? Vishkar… Vishkar has been her entire life, and she isn’t ready to give it up. Not yet. She doesn’t want to. The idea that they have been planning to lie to her, to frame Talon or Sombra for something of their own doing…

Her eyes slip shut and she exhales before Satya returns to her work in the lab. She cannot sit down and think about this. Vishkar still does good work. They have helped many people, brought order where there have been none, and have been able to revolutionise and bring ease to many day-to-day activities.

She still has to work. She can’t give up.

 

 

The next day that Sombra comes back is a day where the folder has been the heaviest. In fact, there have been several folders in her hands when she comes and drops them all off on Satya’s desk. There is a quiet, pleased smile on Sombra’s face, before it fades away and she makes herself comfortable on Satya’s bed.

Quietly, nervously, Satya opens the first folder and finds herself face to face with the first mission she has ever done. There is a small  _ failure  _ written on it and as she reads through it she realises that her first mission is one she has messed up by virtue of her wanting to do this peacefully.

The protest against Vishkar that she has redirected is one that has been done on purpose. Her original purpose is to play ‘protector’ and save the people when the protest is made far too rowdy, with help from someone else in the company, someone she doesn’t know, and Satya’s heart plummets to her stomach. 

She reads on. All of these are missions concerning her; plans that have been changed or gone awry because she is a pacifist that only resorts to violence when absolutely necessary. Some have failures written on them, while others have commentary on surprise success and their unexpected pleasure at being held highly due to their peaceful measures… but it is still not enough for them.

Satya cannot tell if they are frustrated with her or not… and when she gets to her latest mission, where she has to go somewhere undercover and ends up saving a little girl, she realises that the one to plant the bomb has been none other than her own company so that property is taken away and given to them to try and fix up.

“Y’know,” Sombra says after having been quiet for so long, “these are only the stuff that has to do with you. If you wanted to, I could go back to waaaay before they recruited you in… there’s been a tonna sabotages. Even I’m surprised. You know that little incident with the Saito company that eventually resulted in them going bankrupt and disbanding? Yeah. Vishkar.”

Satya closes her eyes and tries to block Sombra out once she opens them again. She rearranges the papers and the folders, makes sure that they are all smooth and perfectly aligned to try and calm her nerves.

“These cannot be from my company.” Satya says, but even she can feel her resolve wavering. Sombra, for a moment, is quiet. “They cannot- there is no way that they would want to…” she can’t even bring herself to say it. Her hands curl into tight fists.

This cannot be her company… the one that has saved her, raised her, and brought to her all her values. There is…

“Sorry to tell you sweetheart,” Sombra says, interrupting her thoughts, “but it is.” Satya looks over at Sombra and finds her staring back at her evenly. The teasing tone in her voice is gone and there is only the quiet sternness of truth in her words. “All this? Stuff your company wanted you to do. You can live on as you want, pretend its lies, or…” she shrugs. “Do whatever it is you wanna do.”

What is it that she wants to do? If she squares up against her superiors, Satya does not know what the consequences will be. She does have spare money in case something comes down to it, but everything of hers is connected to the company itself and Satya isn’t entirely sure she can just separate from it.

Vishkar industries has always been her home. But she does not know if that can remain the truth any longer. She should doubt Sombra… but it is a fool’s task to do something like that. “You have yet to explain yourself to me.” Satya says. Surprise briefly appears on Sombra’s face, as if that isn’t what she expects to be told. “Why would an agent of Talon waste her time, collecting plans and data from Vishkar to give to one of its less influential workers… and then ask nothing for it in return? You know I cannot give you or Talon benefits in any way. My technology would never be of use to you. Why?”

There’s silence. It rests heavy on their shoulders  and Sombra licks her dry lips and Satya stares at her, holding her gaze captive. “I… admire you.” Sombra admits. “But don’t think too much about it. I don’t wanna steal you away or make you work for Talon. I just wanted you to see the truth as we all see it.”

Eventually, Sombra makes her leave when Satya doesn’t say anything else and she is left alone in her own room. With no one else to keep her company, no one else for her to talk to but herself in her head, Satya stares off and wonders what to do now that she has been exposed to parts of her company that she has been blind to.

The urge to scream overtakes her. She doesn’t indulge in it, knowing better than to do so for it will not only alert the others but hurt her ears as well, and stays silent until exhaustion takes over and she heads to sleep.

There is nothing else for her to do without jeopardizing her own life.


End file.
